An Unexceptional Blog

An Unexceptional Blog

Thoughts of another Wife/Mother/Artist/Writer

The Story Behind the Blog

The following was once said to me, many years ago. 

“No offence, but I want my life to be exceptional.” 

Years later, I am fully aware that this statement communicated far more about the person who said it and their dissatisfaction in life than anything about the choices made in my own. Clearly, their concept of the exceptional came closer to a definition of “famous” or “overworked,” neither of which are goals of mine.

I invite you, dear reader, to consider this: what is exceptional to you? What do you, intrinsically and personally, find exceptional? And, to bring the question in another direction: is there not wonder in the unexceptional, if you so choose there to be?

There is nothing wrong in being unexceptional. I embrace the word and take it back. Yes, the life I lead is one that might seem similar to countless others. I have titles that billions of others have as well: wife, mother, artist, writer. But I find solace in that fact: it means I am not alone. Whether my life is exceptional isn’t for others to decide. Finding the exceptional in the very normal and mundane is how I choose to live my life.

So, dear reader, will you join me in this endeavour? 

Posts

  • A Perspective on Change and a Changing Perspective

    It had been a year, dear reader, since I had written anything at all, when one non-eventful evening, I found myself opening my laptop, wondering if I was ready to write again. I was thinking of writing about the concept of change, having recently felt like I had been violently thrown in all directions by its currents. When I used to write more regularly, I always had a few ideas on the go, with each given a folder containing anything from a…

  • A Quasi-Traditional Way of Living

    My husband once told a work acquaintance that I didn’t work outside our home (at that time) and the reply he received came with an approving smile: “Ah, as it should be.”  This response signalled two things. One, that this person wasn’t someone we were going to get closer to, them having betrayed their own misogyny. And two, it meant that there is something about us, or me, that leads people to believe that we would agree with this statement, that makes…

  • Let Me Grow Old, Will You?

    I have, dear reader, frown lines. Their name betrays that I must surely be angry all the time; I must surely be the kind of mother that says “no” to everything; I must be someone that disapproves of all those I cross. I used to be really scared of what these lines communicate about me. But, I have since taken the time, one particular morning, to get up close and personal with my frown lines. I twisted my face this way and…

  • The Art of Doing Nothing: From Someone Terrible at It

    This last week I experienced my first migraine. It was a 6 day long affair in my case, and I give it a solid 3 out of 10. “Why not zero?” I hear you ask? I give it a non-zero score only for what it has taught me. This migraine opened my eyes to the art of doing nothing. It is an art at which I am famously terrible, dear reader, but I now have renewed interest in it.  A few days…

  • Objective Truth(s)

    The concept of objective truth is one that permeates my relationship with my body, and, it seems,  strains it. An objective truth is a truth that can be understood and believed by everyone. Can something, anything, be true for everyone? What role does perception play in all this? When applying these thoughts to how I see my body, it makes me ask questions like: what does my body look like, objectively? What is its truest form? Which perception of it is the…